Richard Laymon - Blood Games

‘Oh, that’s okay.’

Cora started forward, Vivian close behind her. Helen went after Vivian. Abilene, following her, glanced back. The camera rested on Finley’s shoulder. Its tiny red light was off, so she wasn’t taping.

‘Move it along, Hickok,’ she said with a grin.

Abilene turned away.

Cora, the small bundle of clothes perched atop her head and held steady with one hand, waded into the darkness of the lodge.

‘Native bearers,’ Finley said, ‘following the Great White Hunter through unmapped regions of darkest Vermont.’

‘Oomgowah,’ Abilene said.

‘Watch out for water snakes and crocodiles, ladies.’

‘Very funny,’ Helen said.

‘There might be snakes,’ Abilene said.

‘And piranha,’ Finley added. ‘I think I feel a nibble now.’

The talk, though all in good fun, made Abilene uncomfortably aware of being naked in strange waters. With both hands busy holding the bundles overhead, she felt totally vulnerable. She half expected something squirmy to slide against her. As she followed Helen under the archway, she pressed her thighs together and clenched her buttocks and walked with short steps as if her knees were bound together.

Nobody’s yelling , she told herself. Everything’s probably fine .

But they aren’t talking, either, she realized. All she could hear from inside the lodge was the soft sloshing of water.

Then she was through the archway.

Cora, Vivian and Helen had spread out. They were wandering about in chest-high water, turning slowly, their heads swiveling and lifting. They looked like a trio of bizarre tourists gaping at a wonder.

Abilene waded forward. She heard Finley moving behind her. Then came the quiet hum of the camera. It sounded very loud in the stillness. But nobody looked around. Nobody objected.

Abilene began wandering about, moving generally toward the pool’s far side as she turned and surveyed the place.

It reminded her strongly of indoor swimming pools she’d known in Illinois — at the Y, at the high school — before moving to California after her sophomore year. It had the same dank air, the same acoustics that intensified every sound so that even the soft lapping of the water seemed to echo.

But the pools she’d known had been twice the size of this one. They had never been hot. And they hadn’t smelled like this. Instead of a chlorine odor, the air here smelled heavy with sulfur.

She supposed the smell might have been unbearable, but fresh air came in along with daylight from broken windows near the ceiling on two sides of the pool. One row of windows, which she’d noticed from outside while standing under the porch, stretched along the back wall. Another several windows crossed the shorter wall at the north end of the room. Those weren’t sheltered by a porch, and narrow strips of sunlight, golden and swirling with dust motes, slanted down from them at sharp angles. The bright strips lighted only one corner of the pool, and the water at that corner glowed like honey.

‘Did you get that?’ she asked Finley, pointing.

‘Yeah. Incredible.’

Their voices, though hushed, resounded off the walls and floors and ceiling.

Helen turned around. She looked very pleased with herself. ‘All this was worth the trip, huh?’

‘I sure think so,’ Abilene said. ‘It’s fantastic down here.’

‘It’s pretty dam neat,’ Vivian admitted.

‘It’ll be great at night,’ Cora said.

‘It’ll be dark at night,’ Vivian said, some of her enthusiasm gone. She tipped back her head and scanned the ceiling. ‘If those lights worked…’

‘It’ll be better without them, anyway.’

‘It’ll be real creepy,’ Helen said.

While she looked at the lights Vivian had mentioned, Abilene noticed that the ceiling tiles over the pool slanted upward at right angles to a rectangular gap in the center.

She hoped for a better view of the opening, so she made her way forward. As she neared the middle of the pool, currents began to rub the front of her body. The water’s temperature seemed to rise. Then she stepped on something that wasn’t granite. Iron bars? She lurched back to get away from them, and gazed down through the water.

Set in the floor of the pool, like a trapdoor, were crosshatched bars a yard long. They covered a square opening. Below them, she saw an orifice surrounded by rough stone. The hole seemed to narrow, farther down. Then darkness obscured its depths.

She tested the strength of the bars with one foot, found them solid, and stepped onto the middle of them. Hot currents climbed her legs, fluttered against her groin and rump, caressed her belly and sides and back. She crouched enough to let the water massage her breasts.

A few moments later, she remembered why she’d come here to the middle of the pool. She tipped back her head. She was directly underneath the gap in the ceiling. It looked like a chimney that ran all the way to the roof. Far up there, she saw a gray smudge of daylight.

‘What do you suppose that is?’ Finley asked, coming up beside her.

‘A vent?’

‘Looks like it.’

‘I guess you’d need something like that, you build a lodge on top of a hot spring.’

Finley tilted her camera high. ‘You’d think snow and crap would fall in.’

‘I think it’s covered. You can’t see sky, just a little light. The sides are probably open. The spring’s right here, by the way.’

‘Yeah?’ Finley looked down.

‘Here, stand on it.’ Abilene moved aside.

Finley stepped onto the bars, and her eyes widened. ‘Hey, now,’ she said, ‘I might just stay right here.’

‘I’m getting out before I melt down to nothing.’ Abilene left her there.

Cora, arriving at the far side, tossed her bundle of clothes to the tile floor. She boosted herself onto the edge, stood up and turned around. Feet apart, hands on hips, her skin shiny and dripping, she waited for the others.

And saw Finley, still on the grate, taping her.

‘Damn it, Fin!’

‘Hey, come on, you look great. Just like Tarzan.’

A corner of her mouth curled up. ‘Like Tarzan?’

‘Tarzan with tits,’ Abilene said.

And Cora began bellowing like the apeman, drumming her chest with both fists, her breasts jumping with each blow, the wild outcry resounding through the room, deafening.

Abilene, aching to plug her ears, hurled her two bundles of clothes past the edge of the pool. By the time she could poke fingertips into her ears, however, Cora had stopped.

Vivian, cringing, muttered, ‘Jesus H. Christ.’

Finley, grinning, gave the side of her camera a fond pat and started forward. ‘This is gonna be great.’

‘Nobody better ever see it but us,’ Cora warned.

‘Nobody ever sees these tapes but us. You know that.’

‘Yeah, but do I believe it?’

Abilene boosted herself out of the pool. She wondered if Finley was videotaping her. Probably. When she turned around, she saw the camera pointed her way, its red light on. ‘You want me to hold that for you?’ she asked. Crouching, she reached out. Finley waded forward and handed the camera to her.

Abilene reversed it, raised it to her eye, and taped Finley climbing out.

Helen laughed and clapped.

‘Real cute, Hickok.’

‘The historical record of our adventure wouldn’t be complete without you in it,’ Abilene said, grinning.

‘Yeah yeah yeah.’

‘Get this, Abby,’ Cora said. She grabbed Finley by the shoulders and hurled her off the edge. The girl flew backward past Helen’s side, arms and legs flapping, and smacked the water. Vivian, near the impact site, whirled and ducked away from the huge splash.

‘I’d give her a six-point-two,’ Abilene said. ‘Sloppy entry.’